Eve of Destruction (57 page)

 “With the north bridge burned and the train station likely buried, there aren’t many ways left to get out of town,” Gregori commented when they ducked into another alleyway and waited for a contingent of nearby soldiers to pass. “I’ll bet there’s going to be a rush on the Zefrim tower soon enough.”

Maltus glanced over his left shoulder to the distant tower and two massive balloon-like ships slowly floating in to dock with it. If Simon had any sense whatsoever, he probably had a garrison of a few hundred soldiers guarding it. Despite its centralized location and heavy defenses, the Enclave would definitely go after it, and probably soon—this entire attack was about fear, after all, and no image would sear into people’s minds quite like that of a flaming Zefrim crashing to the ground next to its tower.

Two minutes later, the three of them had pressed themselves down behind a crumbled pile of bricks across the street from the hotel. Maltus had already prepared himself for the worst—he’d half-expected to find the entire building leveled. Thankfully, it wasn’t…yet. The battle for the hotel was over, however, and they were staring at the aftermath.

Maltus pursed his lips. A small squad of magi had secured the door, and they hunched down behind a toppled statue on the front steps. Scattered all around them were the charred and broken bodies of soldiers, but not all of them wore the same uniform. Many were Steamworks, but some wore the blue coats of the Arkadian army—Janel’s personal defense force.

And the Enclave had destroyed all of them.

“They’ll have sent others inside to deal with Janel and his guards personally,” Maltus said. “They want to make sure the job gets done.”

“We have to get through them,” Gregori murmured. “And quickly.”

Jean glanced at both of the men in turn. “We can’t hurt them. They’re our people.”

“They were, once,” Maltus said. “Now they’re insurrectionists and murderers. And we have to get Karyn and Janel before they’re overwhelmed.”

Gregori sighed. “So it all comes down to this. I suppose I always knew it would, one way or another.”

Maltus pressed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. He had known it too, even if he hadn’t come out and admitted it to himself. He’d already gone against the Enclave’s wishes, and there was no way the Magister’s Council would take him back. But this…this was taking it to an entirely new level. He was going to have to fight and perhaps kill other magi. It was a terrible and final threshold to cross.

It was also the only way they might be able to save an old friend—and the only chance they had at all of saving Eve.

“I need one of your illusions,” Maltus said.

Gregori frowned. “What?”

“I’ll see if I can get past them without harming anyone, but I need to look like a magister.” He glanced down to his simple pants and tunic. “This isn’t going to cut it.”

“Glenn…” Jean whispered.

“It’ll work, but we need to hurry,” he assured her. “Can you do it?”

Gregori nodded and opened his palm. A wisp of blackish smoke curled around Maltus’s body, and suddenly his outfit had been replaced by a black uniform with a crimson sash. If he hadn’t known what he was actually wearing—if he couldn’t feel the buttons of his tunic pressed against his skin—even he would have believed what he was looking at.

“Just give me a minute,” Maltus told them, “and stay here.”

He closed his eyes and called to the Fane. He wrapped himself in the strongest kinetic barrier he could muster then further reinforced the shield to protect against extremes of hot and cold. It wasn’t a perfect defense, but ultimately nothing was—and he had to hope that if these soldiers weren’t willing to back down, they would at least by unprepared for the power he could unleash.

But first things first. If this had any hope of working at all, he needed to get them off their guard, and for that, he needed to do more than simply walk up there like any old torbo. He stared at the front steps of the hotel and touched the Fane again. He let himself be swept away by its currents as they washed over the entire city. Navigating them was difficult, not unlike steering a ship in the midst of a great storm. But if he focused on a particular point, a single glowing star in the heavens beckoning him in the right direction…

And with a flash of blue light, he materialized on the steps next to the magi soldiers guarding it.

“Report,” he ordered.

The four soldiers leapt back nearly in unison, and their hands crackled briefly with power before they took a real look at him. Hopefully they were just as awed by his Fane-shifting ability as he expected—and just as convinced by Gregori’s illusion.

“We’ve secured the entire block, sir,” one of the men said. “Scarlet team had already slipped inside by the time we arrived, but we were told to hold this position.”

Maltus did his best to repress a wince. If one of their teams had already penetrated the building, then that meant Janel and Karyn might already be dead.

But he had to know for certain. They all did.

“Report back to the rendezvous point,” Maltus told them. “I’ll take it from here.”

The man blinked. “Sir, we have our orders…”

“I know, and I’m changing them,” he replied with as much false bravado as he could muster. “The Council wants to make certain this is done right.”

It was immediately clear that none of them were buying it. Perhaps he should have simply blasted them the moment he arrived and not given their minds a chance to catch up, or perhaps he should have tried something more subtle than bluntly asking them to leave. But ultimately, it didn’t matter. Despite his best efforts, he was going to have to cross that dark threshold after all.

“Magister Wilhelm gave us the order himself,” the mage said. “And I don’t recognize you.”

“I really wish you did,” Maltus breathed. “And may the Goddess forgive me.”

Before they could respond, he extended his palm and unleashed a rippling shockwave of concussive force directly into the statue next to them. The invisible blast slammed into the stone with enough power to split it in half, and the soldiers hurled away from it like ragdolls cast aside by an angry child. 

One mage managed to bounce off a nearby column and right himself quickly, the energy from his kinetic barrier flickering as it absorbed the worst of the impact. He immediately hurled a simple but powerful barrage of crackling electricity straight at Maltus. The magister let his own barrier absorb the worst of the blast, but a single spark slipped through and singed his left arm. His bicep spasmed uncontrollably, and he lost precious seconds as he staggered from the pain…

Maltus grit his teeth and lashed out again, this time by shifting the gravity at his opponent’s feet. The mage responded instinctually, just as his training had no doubt ingrained in him—he countered the gravity spell with one of his own, pushing down to keep his feet on the ground. Unfortunately for him, Maltus had no intention of hurling him upwards. Instead he pushed out, and the man abruptly launched straight backwards, skittering across the ground until he smashed into another building some fifty feet away. After a macabre
crack
, the man slid to the ground and stopped moving.

Maltus winced at the sight of the corpse, and the hesitation nearly cost him his life. A low rumble shook the ground, and he turned just in time to catch a glimpse of another soldier weaving his own spell. Fane energy writhed about the man like a serpent, and he created a gout of roaring flame that hosed down the entire hotel entryway. Maltus crouched and did his best to reinforce his barrier against the assault. The flash of heat on his skin was nearly unbearable, and for a moment his shield flickered dangerously as it struggled to hold—

And then the attacker cried out sharply, and the plume of flame vanished. Maltus blinked through the heat and saw the man twitching in place, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Jean was standing behind him, her hand pressed against his neck. A moment later the soldier collapsed to the ground, his muscles still spasming.

“If you’re done trying to show off, we need to get up there,” she said, striding forward up the stairs to meet him. Gregori lumbered along right behind her.

Maltus nodded as he swept his eyes across the other Enclave magi. They weren’t moving, and he held out hope they were merely unconscious rather than dead. Regardless, he didn’t have time to worry about it.

Jean grabbed his still-quivering left arm, and the moment her skin touched his it was like a bucket of cool water had suddenly been poured across the wound. Within seconds the pain was gone, and when she released her grip it was like he’d never been injured at all. He smiled and nodded at her appreciatively.

“This time we all go together,” Gregori said, throwing open the hotel door. “Come on.”

***

“Blessed Kirshal,” Zach breathed as he gazed out at the Hall of Innovation from a corner alleyway. “It’s...unbelievable.”

Shaedra squinted as she tried to peer through the seemingly endless clouds of smoke and eruptions of fire on the steps in front of the building. It was an impressive skirmish, to be sure, with Chaval’s soldiers and his mercenary magi defending the building against a deluge of magic from the Enclave forces. Guns and spells joined together in the dissonant symphony of modern warfare, and it seemed impossible for anything to survive such a destructive tempest.

But she knew the young man wasn’t talking about that. He was staring down at the streets and the sea of bodies covering them. Whereas most of the city was a sprawling mass of screaming civilians trying to escape the chaos, this intersection was a graveyard. The bodies weren’t all soldiers—in fact, perhaps only one in ten had any type of uniform. The others were ordinary citizens—men, women, and even children—cut down by gunfire or magic. Many of the corpses were so badly burned as to barely be recognizable as human; others had slowly bled to death from smaller wounds or were still writhing about for help even now. Half a dozen carriages had been similarly shredded or burned along with the horses that pulled them. One hunk of wreckage in particular was little more than a flaming pile of bones.

Shaedra wanted to feel pity for the dead, and perhaps even more for those who still barely clung to life. But she couldn’t feel it past the hunger gripping at her mind. Hundreds of small, fragile lives rippled through the Fane and teased her pallet. They were out there, so close to death, their lives flickering like dying candles….and it was all she could do not to run over to them and snuff them out. She could feed on them; she could draw strength from what remained of their feeble lives. It would almost be a merciful end compared to what they would face here…

A loud
snap
caught her attention, and she glanced down to her hand. The barrel she’d been clutching had splintered around her fingers. Blood trickled off her skin, but she could barely even feel it. The hunger throbbed in her ears and burned in her eyes. She should have known better than to come here. She should have known better than to trust herself to keep control in a place like this.

“You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?” Zach hissed, his lip curled in disgust. “You sick bitch.”

Shaedra bit down on her tongue hard enough to taste even more blood. “I have to get inside. You should find a place to hide.”

“I didn’t come here to hide,” he told her. For a moment his eyes seemed to soften, as if his revulsion might have suddenly been overwhelmed by pity.

“I can’t keep you safe,” she murmured. “Not from so many.”

“I never expected you to. Now come on.”

Shaedra smiled. If nothing else, she could at least understand why the girl loved him. He was like a faithful hound, loyal to the bitter end. She just hoped she could stay strong enough to keep him from meeting that fate here.

“Stay close and don’t fire if you don’t have to,” she whispered. She wrapped him in a quick kinetic barrier, enough to hopefully shield him from a stray piece of debris or maybe even a distant gunshot, and then she leapt forward into the fray. As she moved she wove a simple illusion to thicken the smoke and provide them additional cover as they dashed through the scattered debris and corpses lining the street. She did her best to ignore the urge to feed as they passed by wounded bodies, just as he no doubt had to suppress his desire to try and help them. Not that he could do anything for them at this point.